If you vote, I'll enter you into a drawing for a Little, Brown Book for Young Readers of your choice! Voting will end at 5 pm EST next Sunday, March 29th.

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Next Tuesday, March 31st, I will be on a panel at the New School on getting published, along with Ben Tomek, marketing associate, Reader’s Digest Children’s Publishing; and Anna Olswanger, literary agent, Liza Dawson Associates. It's only $5 (free for students, faculty, and alumni), so if you're in the NY area, come on out! More info here.

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A few weeks ago I listened to a Radio Lab podcast about will power. It described an experiment done in the 1960s where Dr. Walter Mischel tested the will power and ability to delay gratification of hundreds of preschoolers, offering them a marshmallow now, or two if they waited 15 minutes. Listen to it here.

There had been highlights of an adorable Oreo cookie version on the blog, but it seems to have disappeared, and I'm unable to find it online--if anyone can find it, please let me know! It was cute, although short. There are several reenactments online, here are a few of the better ones:

This one is good, although the video of the experiment is sandwiched between a preacher's sermon:

15 comments:

sorry I didn't get to vote yet, just got back in town and catching up on the blog! I like #1 the best, because I think it best describes what the posts will actually be about and has a nice ring to it.

Yes, # 1 -- and thank you again for telling me about the Radio Lab show.

I described the experiment and videos to one of the kids I babysit for -- NOT Adam, some may be thankful to know, I hope our readers aren't getting sick of hearing about him.

He said, immediately,"I would wait!" and then asked to try it.

His strategy (all the kids who managed to wait had strategies) was to let his eyes unfocus -- he showed me beforehand how he was going to do that, and said it was something he had always had the ability to do. It was amazing to see him sitting there expressionless, looking like a Zombie,

When I peeked in during the experiment, though, he was staring at the marshmallow.

Thank you for telling me about this Marshmallow Experiment: I listened to the Radio Lab program twice and really enjoyed watching the re-enactments.

Love BEYOND THE BOOK. Like another poster wrote above, I thought of the great VH1 program "BEHIND THE MUSIC" which is FINALLY coming back on air. Thank g-d. Loved that show. Going "Beyond" the author's story is exactly why I love reading editor's blogs.

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